We are the Hunters
by Erisah Mae
Summary: Something went wrong with Eren's father's experiment. Instead of turning into a Titan as he was supposed to, Eren woke up in the unfamiliar body of someone else who had just been through an incredibly traumatic experience. The infant Harry Potter. Rated for foul language in English and Japanese.
1. Chapter 1: A rude awakening

_Disclaimer: All relevant properties belong to either JK Rowling or Hajime Isayama. Please support the official releases._

Chapter 1: A Rude Awakening

When he woke up, he didn't know where he was.

All he knew was that the room he was in smelled of death.

It was night, and he was in an unfamiliar room, in an unfamiliar bed.

A strange bed though. It seemed more like a crib. Pine bars rose on every side of the mattress. For some bizarre reason there was a life-size teddy bear on the bed with him.

Ridiculous. Whose idea of a joke was this? Pranks weren't unheard of amongst the Cadets, but this was pretty elaborate for a prank. He rose to his feet unsteadily, and was shocked to realise that not only was he wearing a nappy- a nappy!- his body felt and looked... wrong.

He looked down at his pudgy legs, at his pudgy hands gripping the... crib railing.

His eyes spied a splash of red, and he was startled to see that there was a female shape lying on the floor. _Oh. That explained the smell then_. She looked to be big enough to be a Titan, but she was... wearing clothes? What the hell? Since when did Titans wear clothes? He'd heard that it was only very occasionally that they were female, but where was the steam? She had bright red hair- that was what had caught his attention- and green eyes, already glazing over in death. He had seen enough dead bodies by now to be able to recognise the state. He couldn't tell what had killed her though. From what he could see, there were no marks on her body, though maybe all that red hair was hiding the kill blow at the nape of the neck... but she wasn't turning into steam or disintegrating. Titans did that. He knew, he had sat through enough classes saying so, though he had never seen one killed before.

_Think_, he told himself, _think_. How the hell had he got into this situation? What was the last thing he remembered?

_Pain. Heat. He had been... swallowed? Yes. Yes! He had saved Armin, pulled him straight from the Titan's mouth, and then the Titan had bitten down. It had bitten his arm off. His arm! Then he had fallen, and then been surrounded by boiling liquid and dead and dying bodies. Bodies like the bodies of his team. He had saved Armin, but that meant only one of them had survived unscathed. Even before he had lost his arm, he had already known that this was his last mission- the Titan had leapt up and snapped his leg off when he had been flying with the 3DMG... how could he have predicted that? The liquid -stomach acid?!- was boiling him alive, and he was losing blood, fast. The girl dying next to him had cried out for her mother, he had screamed..._

And then it all went black.

Eren grimaced, rubbing absently at his forehead. It felt like there was some kind of welt on it, and whatever it was, it was giving him a killer headache.

This body wasn't his. For one, it was chubby in a way he was sure he hadn't been since he was a tiny child. For another, it wasn't missing any limbs. Not that the latter was real cause for complaint, Eren admitted to himself, but the fact remained that somehow, he had ended up in a body that was not his own.

Somehow, instinctively, he knew that he had died, there in the belly of the Titan.

He screamed in rage, beating the wall of the crib with his fists.

_No! No! No!_

And that was when the gigantic man walked in.

Eren's rage turned to fear.

A Titan?

He opened his mouth to scream some more, but he saw... tears?

What? Since when did Titans have expressions other than that creepy empty grin? The stranger looked devastated. Like he had just lost all of his friends in the world.

Wait.

The man might have been huge but like the large woman lying dead on the floor, he was wearing clothes.

"Lily! Oh _Merlin_, Lily."

Eren frowned. The man had spoken, but not words in a language he understood. But still, he had spoken!

The man knelt and closed the dead woman's eyes.

Remorse? Sorrow?

Eren might not have been the brightest in his class- that would be Armin or Mikasa- but he wasn't an idiot either.

Certain feeling that he had died, strange crib-like bed, feeling that his body wasn't his own, almost-certainly-not-Titans that were nonetheless a whole lot bigger than he was.

He swore aloud.

"K'so!"

"Harry?" the man rose from the floor, and then suddenly he was looming over the crib.

Eren felt the urge to cower away from the huge presence, but as he had since he was a child, promptly ignored it and glared instead.

The face creased looking concerned.

"Harry? It's Uncle Padfoot, you know me. Come on, Pup. Let's get out of here."

Eren still couldn't understand the language the man was speaking, but he recognised the tone. It was a tone that some adults had adopted around him and Mikasa when they heard about his mother. Adults who cared, who felt sad for his loss. The last of them, (apart from Hannes, but he always sounded so guilty that the tone was rather different anyway,) had been marched off alongside Armin's grandfather on the suicide mission to reclaim Wall Maria, and there had been few enough of them to begin with. Doctor Jaeger's freaky kid and his freaky kid sister were not exactly popular even before Shiganshina had been lost. Something about them beating up the other kids for picking on Armin, and Eren's unhidden desire to see the outside world. Oh, and the rumours about them killing the thugs who had killed Mikasa's parents, when they were both nine...

_Yeah,_ Eren admitted to himself, _maybe there had been a few decent reasons why people steered clear of them._

_Mikasa... she was right, _he thought morosely, feeling a twist of nausea at the thought of her being left alone. She had tried so hard to protect him, and what had he done? Barrelled straight in and got himself killed on his first engagement. Apparently sheer guts couldn't replace skill after all. Graduating fifth in his class had meant nothing after all, since he had obviously failed his first real test. _What was going to happen to her? And Armin? _

Eren's shoulders shook.

_How was he going to survive without them, the only people who had survived Shiganshina and stuck by him through thick and thin and hellish Cadet training?_

His feelings of deep depression were rudely interrupted by the sensation of being lifted out of the crib by his armpits.

_What!?_

_Oh. The man. _

Eren squirmed in the man's grasp. This was so humiliating!

"Hey, settle down there, Pup. We've got to get out of here, and I can't carry you if I'm worried I'm going to drop you!" the man sounded half-hysterical, but was nonetheless gentle as he hugged Eren to his chest, wrapping arms securely around him.

Eren ceased struggling, despite himself, as instinct told him that he was safe and secure. Which made no sense to Eren, but suddenly he was feeling really tired. Nothing made sense. He had died, but he was alive. Alive and apparently trapped in the body of a small child. Who had been the dead woman? Nothing made sense.

"K'so," he muttered, and he could feel the man's heartbeat under his ear, and a slight rumble as the man said something.

"Bless you. That's the second time you've sneezed. I hope you're not catching cold. That would be..." the man trailed off, but Eren didn't care, he couldn't understand a word the man was saying anyway.

The man left the room, and carried him down what felt like stairs.

_So weird..._ Eren thought hazily, and shivered slightly as they left the house. There had been another body lying just inside the entrance way, a dark-haired man with glasses that seemed to have been smashed when he had fallen, if the spider-web cracks were anything to go by. His eyes had been closed for him. Eren assumed that meant the man carrying him had found him first.

Why had he woken up, alive, and in a strange house full of dead people?

What the hell was going on?

Alarm at his situation woke him back up again, and before he fully realised it he was struggling again.

"Ha-Harry! Cut it out!" Eren stilled when the man almost dropped him. Maybe struggling was a bad idea. He still remembered what it felt like to fall. It hadn't hurt as much as losing his leg, or his arm for that matter, but it hadn't been exactly fun either.

"Sirius? That you?"

A voice boomed out of the night, and suddenly the man holding Eren spun around, to face...

Eren froze.

No way was that a human!

He yelled for the man holding him to run, to move, to _get out of there_!

"Shhhh Harry, it's just Hagrid. It's alright, it's okay, _please_ stop screaming..."

The huge face loomed closer, and reached a hand towards them.

Eren fought the man's hold- if he was too stupid to run, Eren wasn't going to stick around!

"Baka!" Eren yelled as he writhed.

"What's wrong with 'im?" the voice boomed. "Don't 'e remember me?"

"I have no idea, Hagrid. It was so strange before, when I picked him up, it was like he didn't recognise me!" the man grunted as Eren managed to kick him in the stomach. "Ugh! Hold him for a second would you? I guess he's traumatised or something- Merlin knows what he saw You-Know-Who do to his mother before he killed her..." Massive hands gripped Eren, and he started to scream with rage.

"'E's going ta do himself some damage, Sirius!"

"I know, I know, just hold him for a sec, alright, _dormio_!"

Abruptly, Eren felt himself falling asleep. He moaned, and tried to stay awake, but suddenly his eyelids just... felt so... heavy...

The next thing he knew, he was jerking awake to the sound of a woman shrieking.

His eyes popped open, and he struggled against the blankets that were securely wrapped around him.

He looked around, trying to ascertain his surroundings.

_What the fuck!?_

_Why the hell had he been left on a fucking doorstep?!_

_..._

_A/N: Oh God. What have I created!?_


	2. Chapter 2: Living with the Dursleys

Chapter 2: Living With The Dursleys

In the days that followed that first one, Eren did his best to try and understand what the hell was going on around him. Apparently his child-body had got him put in the custody of this bizarre, loud family. He might not understand what was going on, why he was alive, or how he had got into this body, but he knew for sure that he didn't like it.

Oh, sure, being alive was unexpected, and if he was honest with himself, it was a pleasant surprise.

Being reduced to being a toddler though, whilst being surrounded by people speaking a language that he didn't understand? It felt like a sick joke.

What seemed to be even more of a joke at first was how strange every thing seemed- no one seemed to ride horses around here- instead, there were strange metal contraptions called "cars" and "buses", that ran on "petrol".

Music sounded strange and occasionally atonal. The floor-coverings were made from "synthetic materials". Weird devices that lit-up and made whirring noises were "electric" - the first time he saw the television, he was half-convinced it was magical, though _could_ magic be so common-place? It seemed that "electric" lights and devices were taken for granted around here, which Eren found _very_ strange.

There was one thing that confused him the most though.

Where were the Titans?

There were these things called "terrorists" on the television, (and _that_ had been a surprise when he had first learnt what the strange box in the living room was for,) that blew up buildings and cars, often injuring people, but Eren was pretty sure that they were human.

_Was it _possible _that there were no Titans? _

The idea seemed almost anathema to his world-view, but the more that Eren saw of this world, the more it seemed impossible that there could be. For one thing, when he leafed through the various books and magazines that were in the house-hold, the ones with pictures looked like the images of the outside world that Armin had had in his grandfather's forbidden book.

But unlike in that book, _these_ pictures were all photographs, something that he understood to be real to life (the house was full of pictures of the loud family's tubby son, so he had learned pretty quickly what photographs were). Many of them had people in them, just standing out in the open spaces, in the seas of sand or rivers of ice. Some of the pictures were even of the sea, or of forests, or strange creatures the likes of which he had never seen before. But even though there were many strange creatures depicted, there were no Titans.

Eren was starting to sincerely doubt that this was the same world he had left. Was it even possible though?

No less impossible than being reborn in a new body, Eren supposed.

Though Eren had never seen any of the wonders this world seemed to offer beyond the television and a few books, the more he saw of them, the more he wanted to experience them first-hand.

But that would have to wait. Eren's body was still too small.

As soon as he got big enough to properly defend himself though? Eren was out of here.

Especially because his new... foster family, he supposed... seemed about as happy with his presence as he was with theirs. Eren didn't need to be able to speak their strange language to recognise the mixture of bewilderment and anger that was on both of their faces. If he had been in his old body, Eren would have packed up and left at the first opportunity.

Chances are that his foster-parents would send him away with smiles.

The trouble with that though, was that Eren's current body appeared to be even younger than he had first thought.

The first obvious indication of this had been the couple's child. Their son was by far the most well-fed infant that Eren had ever seen. Eren's new body might be pudgy, but it was the comparative pudginess of baby fat to his old, toned body that had been honed and hard from his time in the Cadets. When he looked at the other kid though, ("Dudders" he seemed to be called, going by one of the more repetitive words that the parents said to him in saccharine voices,) Eren felt positively delicate.

Dudders was a good half-head taller than he was, suggesting to Eren that he was most likely older, as well as better fed. And Dudders couldn't be older than 2, unless he had suffered some brain damage. (Eren would later come to wonder if this discarded theory was not in fact more accurate than he had first thought, but with no visible scar-tissue and no access to Dudders' medical records, he had to assume that the kid was just not very bright, and not given any motivation to improve himself, as opposed to someone who had suffered oxygen deprivation at an early age).

Looking at the father, Eren could only assume that he was from the merchant class. Even the lazy garrison soldiers who had half-heartedly, (and in the end, completely ineffectually,) guarded the gate had not been that fat, and as far as Eren could see, the man did not wear a uniform.

Whilst her husband and son were both well-padded, the wife on the other hand ("Pet" was what her husband called her, as she called him something that sounded like "Bernon") was bony. Eren privately wondered if she might have an eating disorder of some kind, or at best, some sort of intestinal worm, because she was able to access the same rich food as her husband for every meal, and yet her frame remained spare, her dresses hanging off her as though on a clothes-hanger.

The one thing that confused Eren the most about the couple though, was that they had apparently taken him in. He appreciated this, as his current body was distressingly not under his full control yet. This was a situation he worked hard to remedy, trying his best to improve his balance so he walked instead of toddled, his dexterity so that he could write instead of scribbling and his comprehension of the local language so that he could _actually ask what the fuck was going on here_.

Because the couple obviously didn't want him around. That was fine by Eren. He would endeavour to get out of their hair as quickly as possible- he, Mikasa and Armin had been the only ones looking out for themselves since he was eleven, and he was more than used to not expecting adults to look after him or have his best interests at heart. It did confuse him though that despite the fact that they evidently despised the very sight of him, the couple continued to feed him and shelter him in their house.

Sure, they seemed to have decided that the best bedroom for him was the cupboard under the stairs.

That was fine by Eren. He had slept in far worse places during his cadet training.

Sure, they dressed him in their son's cast-offs.

That was fine too. Eren's family before the fall of Shiganshina had been at least moderately well-off, but after that he had been a refugee. As Mikasa had taught him on that day with the bread roll, rejecting help because you didn't like the source was not a luxury one had if one wanted to survive.

If nothing else, Dudders' cast-offs were _warm_, as the extra material allowed Eren to easily layer and wrap the cloth about himself. Sure, he would have far preferred to be wearing something that fit better and reminded him more of his Cadet Uniform, but he had been a refugee, and thus had a good understanding of the waste-not want-not mentality. Even though he was fairly sure the family could have afforded to buy him clothes if they had wanted to, he didn't really feel it was worthy of complaint.

He would have liked the family a fair bit better though if they had spared just a little more food for his growing body.

It wasn't like he had not starved before. One bread roll per day being the only semi-guaranteed food before Armin's grandfather and the other 249 999 people sent off to die and lighten the load on the food-deprived populace behind Wall Rose had not exactly been a balanced diet. At the beginning of Cadet training, he had been proscribed a range of supplements to combat his two years of malnutrition and border-line starvation. It was just as well, as otherwise he would never have been able to build up the muscle mass that he had needed to survive the gruelling regime.

He had no desire to become as fat as the males in this family, but he would have liked to be able to actually eat until he was full every once in a while.

Still, ignoring hunger pangs was easy, especially once he figured out what foods would not be missed from the pantry if he stole and stashed them to eat later in the privacy of his cupboard. Tinned food was the easiest and safest- it kept for years, and Pet tended to buy it in bulk. Eren quickly learned that if he stole food from the back of the pantry, the tins that had been buried and forgotten, he could keep himself supplied without Pet even noticing that there was less to her supplies of beans and tinned tomatoes and tinned pineapple and tuna then she thought. Sometimes he would even steal fruit from the fruit bowl. Nothing that came in brightly-coloured boxes though. Dudders and Vernon were the only ones that ate food from the brightly coloured boxes and bags, and it didn't take long for Eren to figure out that it was mostly confectionery. Having come from a place where salt was worth more by weight than gold, and the only sweet foods were honey-based, Eren did not have much of a taste for overly salty or sweet things. Just a little was more than enough for him to feel decadent, and he already got that fairly regularly, because though he was never given "crisps" or "cake", "worcestershire sauce" and "jam" weren't nearly as carefully regulated.

But keeping himself fed was hardly the biggest challenge Eren had.

Learning a whole new language that had strange grammar and stranger words (it took him simply ages to figure out the difference between "very" and "berry", let alone "row" and "low") was a serious challenge. Especially as it was not as though his main informants were especially helpful with expanding his vocabulary. By the time he figured his body was about four years old, he had most house-hold items down-pat, as well as a pretty fair understanding of insults. It frustrated him though, when he often thought of things he would like to say, but did not yet know the words to express them. For this reason, and because his accent (they called it a speech impediment, and once he figured out what that was supposed to mean he knew they were wrong) tended to get him sneers, he rarely bothered to communicate with his foster family, even when he did understand what they were saying to him. The first time he saw the inside of a magazine and realised that he'd have to learn a whole new _script_ as well nearly made him scream in frustration. Could _nothing_ be easy in this new world?

Having to get used to this tiny, weak new body had been bad enough. That at least he knew how to fix- a combination of time and exercises he'd learnt through bootcamp had him in peak condition in no time... for a four year old. The expression on Aunt Petunia's face when she had caught him doing one-handed push-ups had been pretty funny. The fact that he'd been locked in his cupboard for two days after that had been significantly less so.

Eren was philosophical about her poor reaction. He was aware that it was pretty weird for a small child to be as driven as he was- hell, even when he'd been a kid the first time around he'd been unusually driven enough. Now that he had a second shot though, he knew what he needed to do. This time, he was going to be stronger. This time, when disaster hit (as in his experience it always did,) he was going to be ready and prepared for anything.

Having to deal with this family with the screechy wife and the rough, loud husband and the fat, dull kid was annoying, but it was nothing that Eren couldn't handle. The verbal abuse was annoying, but once Eren understood what a "car-crash" was, he knew that his foster-parents were telling him lies for some reason. The malicious lies were supposed to sting, but the people that the foster-parents derided, calling them his parents... weren't. Eren felt no connection to them. He intellectually understood that it was them that had parented the body he had invaded, but his only memory of the Potters was of them lying dead on the floor. It was hard to summon up a connection towards someone who had been dead before you met them, especially when he had his memories of his real parents, horrifying though they were towards the end.

His lack of reaction to his foster-parents' taunts had at first come from a lack of understanding of English. Now that he was fluent, it came from them simply not knowing what his hot-buttons were. Being called stupid or unwanted didn't bother him- he felt no affection for these people, and so would leave them the moment that he could and not look back. They were not even worth his ire, so pathetic were they.

For the most part they had stopped bothering him now, as he failed to react to any of their taunts, and simply glared up at them with his "unnerving" green eyes.

(Eren had wondered about that, but then he realised that "unnerving" was probably a fair description of his thousand-yard stare coming from the visage of a small child.)

So long as he did his chores (not long after she had caught him doing push-ups, the wife had started him on polishing the furniture and dusting the shelves, and the chore-list had been slowly increasing ever since then) they pretty much left him to his own devices.

Eren liked it that way. It gave him more time to train.

This time, he would be ready.

No one and nothing were going to stop him from living free as he wished.

As soon as this body grew large enough for him to fend for himself...

Since he had woken up in this body, he had yet to meet anyone that he wanted to fight with, but he supposed that he owed it to his reluctant foster family to make sure the... terrorists never attacked them in their dozy village.

After all, Eren felt that he did owe them something for keeping him off the street. Their miserable lives would have to do.

...

Although Eren's body was apparently almost a year younger than Dudders' (he knew that his real name was "Dudley" now, but "Dudders" was easier to pronounce, and it annoyed his "cousin" so he saw no reason to stop) he was sent to school at the same time. Something about his Aunt Petunia not wanting to be "trapped at home taking care of the freak". Not that she really "took care of him" all that much anyway, but Eren had been pretty bored lately anyway. He wasn't allowed to watch the TV, and he'd been through all of the books in the house- most had words that he didn't understand yet, but he was starting to recognise ones that appeared more frequently. He wasn't exactly literate yet, but he was at least further along than Dudders.

(Not that he felt that was much of an achievement. After all, Eren's body might be a year younger, but his mind was telling him that he should be about 19. Dudders wasn't exactly a genius 5yo either. Eren had a feeling that if Mikasa could see him now she would either laugh at him or slap him upside the head.)

School was a strange experience. It was at school that he first learned that this body had a name other than "Freak" or "Boy".

The teacher had been more than a little appalled that he had not known to answer to "Harry Potter". Eren supposed he understood why she would think this was strange, but honestly, even after Eren learnt that he was supposed to answer to "Harry" he still thought of himself as "Eren". He promised himself that if he ever met anyone actually worth calling friend in this strange world then he would tell them his real name. Until that day, he supposed he could answer to "Harry". As far as names went, it could have been worse. He could have been called "Dudley".

Though Eren found the classes themselves to be boring and silly for the most part (well, they were supposed to be aimed at 5-year-olds, after all,) Eren quickly decided that he liked school because it gave him access to the library.

The very first thing he did, upon learning he could borrow whatever books he liked, was to ask for some books about electricity. It had been ground into him during Cadet Training that one did not get to use something that one did not understand. In order to properly use the 3DMG, he had been required to learn some basic mechanics and physics- the mechanics so that he could quickly figure out what was wrong with his device should it break down, and the physics so he could better plan his trajectories. Some people learnt to use the 3DMG through instinct and talent, (like Mikasa,) but everyone else had to brute force it. Knowing some of the relevant maths and physical laws were, if not a short cut, then at least a useful way of setting the cadet's thinking on the right track.

Those that didn't learn tended to die.

So Eren read.

Generally, he would dive straight into the reference section. Technology, science, geography, history, anything he had even a hope of comprehending, he would pick it up and devour it. Academics might have been more Armin's strong suit than his, but even before the military theory had forced him to learn good study habits, Eren had always had a strong natural curiosity.

Where else would his longing to leave the walls have come from. His anger at the Titans had started from the first time he realised his curiosity was effectively thwarted.

After a few days, the librarian noticed his reading material.

"Isn't that a little above your level?" he asked the young boy with the messy black hair who had claimed the same corner for the last three weeks.

Green eyes glared at him, and the librarian, an old man who had been at his job for a good forty years, resisted a shiver.

"...I do not understand all the words," Eren admitted.

"Would you like a dictionary?" the librarian asked.

"A what?" Eren didn't recognise the word.

The librarian suppressed his urge to roll his eyes. What _were_ they teaching the kids these days?

"A dictionary. It is a book in which you can look up words that you don't understand."

Eren nearly slapped himself in the head. _Jissho!_ A Dictionary! Why hadn't he thought of that? He could have been looking up words that the Dursleys used for years!

Though come to think of it, he couldn't be sure that the Dursleys actually owned a dictionary. Having read all the books in the house, he couldn't say that he had found many of them particularly cerebral in nature.

Once he had been armed with a comprehensive dictionary, Eren's self-directed studies started to go even better.

His classroom studies... not so much.

"I already know how to read," he said flatly to the teacher.

His teacher, a woman who just-so-happened to consider herself good friends with Petunia Dursley, was unimpressed by this assertion, and so told him to go and stand in the corner.

"Why?" Eren asked, confused.

"Because you're obviously telling fibs."

Eren's response had been short, to the point, and in Japanese.

The teacher, a Mrs Jenkins, might not have understood the words, but she recognised the tone and the body-language.

However, just as she drew in a breath to start shouting, Eren picked up one of the readers, and in a bored tone started to narrate the tale of a car travelling.

"'...I go, go, go away'," he finished, before dumping the book and walking straight out the classroom door whilst Mrs Jenkins was still gaping at him. The other kids in his class were flabbergasted. To be so rude to a teacher!

Dudley Dursley sat in the back of the classroom and smirked. He was going to get Harry into _so much trouble!_

Curiously, just as Eren had left the room, the students were amazed to note that the teacher's hair had turned blue...

….

That night, Eren considered the fact that maybe he should have kept his mouth shut.

"Think you're _smart_, do you boy?" Vernon Dursley demanded, his face purpling.

Eren shook his head. Obviously not. If he had been smart, he would have simply kept his mouth shut, no matter how bored he was in class.

Vernon however ignored the boy's silent denial.

"Think it's okay to show up my boy Dudley, do you?"

Eren's brow creased. The fat man wasn't serious was he? He seriously thought that Eren's outburst had been due to a sense of competition? The very idea was laughable. In fact, if Vernon had not been towering over him menacingly, Eren probably would have been laughing.

As it was, he was starting to wonder if he should be worried for his safety.

Well, his or the walrus's safety. Vernon was breathing rather hard and turning rather vermillion. Eren winced. That could _not_ be healthy.

"I asked you a question, boy!"

Eren shook his head. "No sir. I didn't mean to show up your son." He hit upon an idea. "In fact, I would be willing to tutor him so that he catches up to me."

A few minutes later, Eren was locked in his cupboard, holding his aching head.

Well. That had backfired.

The foster-parents had not physically struck him before. Belittled him, neglected him, put him to work, locked him up, attempted to starve him...

Huh.

Well when he put it like that, Eren didn't know why he was still sticking around. In the early days it had been because his body was not in any shape to move around much, but that was certainly not the case now. And the pattern of abuse was clearly escalating

Eren nodded to himself. Right then. Fuck this. Time to get out before they started doing him actual grievous bodily harm.

Now he had only one question.

Do this officially, or unofficially?

Eren had plenty of time to contemplate the question as he sat in the darkness of his cupboard.

By the time he was let out again, and his mild concussion had cleared up, he had a plan.

_..._

_Next up: Eren's Escape. Stay tuned._


	3. Chapter 3: Escaping the Cage

Chapter 3: Escaping the Cage

Eren's plan to leave the Dursleys was originally quite simple.

His class had had a lecture about what child abuse was (something Eren was well-aware of), and how to report it (this had been useful information that Eren had immediately filed away). During this, Dudley had sat in the back looking confused. Eren supposed that it was only luck that had prevented his so-called cousin from opening his mouth and getting his parents investigated for things that were fairly common around their home. Whether that luck was good or bad, Eren was unsure, but what he knew was that he was leaving that situation. It had been originally good of his foster-family to take him in, but obviously if any generosity had been involved in that impulse, it had long faded.

So he did what his teacher had told him, and reported the fact that Vernon had hit him. Not to her, but to the school counsellor. Eren wasn't stupid. He had figured out who had reported him for being a nasty little prankster smart aleck. Dudley had gleefully done so too, but from experience he knew that gaining attention from other adults engendered a worse response than Dudley tattling.

The school counsellor had been horrified, and before Eren knew it, there was a large friendly policewoman asking him questions.

Eren answered the questions calmly, showing burns on his arms from the grease that his aunt had insisted he cook with, and his rainbow of bruises from Vernon's strike and physical tossing of him into his cupboard. Then he had to explain what he meant by "his cupboard", and Eren had flatly explained. The friendly policewoman had turned rather grim at this point.

What Eren couldn't know was that it was more than the details of his explanation that were disturbing the counsellor and the policewoman. It was the fact that he was unconsciously presenting himself like he was reporting to one of his superiors- straight-backed, eyes looking through them rather that at them, tone matter-of-fact and calm. The policewoman and the counsellor were coming to the not completely inaccurate conclusion that Eren had been extremely traumatised. Of course, Eren's trauma came from the memories of his past life, not his current circumstances, but even if he had realised their concerns, it was not like Eren could tell them. Who would believe that he had memories of a past life?

An hour later, and Eren had been sat at a table with some coloured pens and paper and some biscuits and juice. As far as he was concerned, this was all going swimmingly. He didn't know where he was going to end up, but frankly, he decided he didn't care. If he didn't like wherever it was, he could always try plan B, which was to do this unofficially, and leaving under his own steam. From what he had figured out about this world, he knew that he would eventually get put back in the system if he went this way, but it would give him a lot more freedom to make up his back-story, to ensure he never ended up back under the grudging care of his "relations".

As he was thinking of this, Eren was idly scribbling ideas out onto the paper of how he would escape, taking care to write it in the script of his own world. It wouldn't do to leave evidence of his plans if he had to enact them.

"Hello young Harry."

Eren startled and jumped away from the table, brandishing the marker he had in his hand as he scrunched the paper he had been writing on and shoved it into his pocket.

"Don't sneak up on me!" Eren snapped, and then did a double take.

Because the figure who had startled him was the slightly weird, elderly cat-lady who lived around the corner, that his foster-parents occasionally left him with when they had "better things to do than keep an eye on him."

_What the fuck...?!_

"Mrs Figg?" he said, confused.

"What are you doing talking to coppers, Harry? Do you want to get your family in trouble?" Mrs Figg demanded.

Eren blinked and backed away slightly. _What the hell was she even doing here?_

"Uh, yes actually. Child abuse is a crime," he said.

"Child abuse!" Mrs Figg exclaimed.

Eren pointed at the bruise on his face. "Child abuse," he confirmed. "I'm in their custody, and they abused me, so I'm going to be put into someone else's custody whilst they get charged."

"But, but, you can't leave there!" Mrs Figg exclaimed.

Eren's brow creased. "Why not? They're hurting me. Why should I stay?"

Mrs Figg flapped her arms around ineffectually, and stammered something about it being for Eren's protection. Which made no fucking sense whatsoever, as far as Eren was concerned. Had the old bat gone completely senile?

By this point, Eren was backing towards the door. Surely the police could protect him from this madwoman.

Just then, the door opened. Eren turned, and saw a tall man dressed in odd black robes step through the door.

"Sir, help me, she's crazy," Eren said, stepping aside as the man strode forward.

The man ignored him and looked askance at Mrs Figg. "Arabella, what in Merlin's name did you tell him?"

"Nothing!" the old woman cringed. "I didn't tell him anything. But he says he doesn't want to go back to the Dursleys."

The man snorted. "They probably grounded him for a prank or something."

"They did not-" Eren started to protest, but the man spun and said an odd word.

...

The next thing Eren knew, he was sitting up in the darkness of his cupboard.

He tried the door.

Locked.

He couldn't remember how he had ended up in here. In fact, he couldn't remember what had happened all day.

His stomach rumbled, and Eren stared down at it, confused.

Come to think of it, the last thing he remembered was...

_Heat, steaming boiling heat. Pain, especially in his arm and his leg. A woman crying out for her mother... he had been eaten by a Titan!_

Eren shook his head.

Wait. That wasn't right.

He knew somehow that this was his cupboard.

_His_ cupboard? Why the hell was his room in a cupboard?

Eren looked around to take stock in his surroundings.

To his left, was a small box full of worn-looking clothing, and a few pencils and pens held in a dented tin. Behind them, he found a stash of food, and a garbage bag in which discarded tins and packets were placed.

To his right, there was a slightly ragged-looking pillow and blanket.

Everything was covered in a light layer of spider-webs.

What the fuck?!

As Eren turned, he heard a crinkling sound from his pocket. He patted it, and realised that there was a piece of scrunched-up paper inside it.

Weird.

He pulled it out, and smoothed it out, using the crack of light that came out from under the cupboard door to see by.

An... escape plan? In his writing?

And this was titled the "unofficial" escape plan. Did that mean that there had been an official one?

Eren didn't wonder why he needed an escape plan. He was sitting in a small, dark, enclosed space full of dust and spiders behind a locked door, with no recollection of how he had got there.

Obviously he needed an escape plan.

So, his next question was, should he wait for his captors to reveal themselves, or try to sneak out before they came for him?

Eren considered.

His captors were an unknown quantity. Waiting for them to show up might mean that he would get some answers, but for all he knew he had been captured by slavers or something, like the men who had tried to take Mikasa. Or worse. He didn't know what they would want with a five year old...

Wait.

Five?

Eren looked down at his hands incredulously, and saw that indeed, they were five-year-old sized.

What. The. Actual...

Eren screamed his rage at the low-ceiling.

"Shut the hell up, brat! You caused us a lot of trouble today!" came the reply, but Eren wasn't listening.

Instead, he was curled in on himself, clutching his head as suddenly the memories rushed back.

_Looking down at tiny infant-sized hands and seeing the dead woman on the ground._

Oh.

_Living with his reluctant foster-family._

Oh!

_Noticing the distaste slowly growing into outright abuse. Making the decision to leave, trying the official channels first, but packing a bag of food and clothes in case of the worst-case scenario in which he had to strike off on his own._

How the...

_The bizarre confrontation with Mrs Figg and the hook-nosed man in black. The man in black pointing... a stick? A stick at him and ..._

Fuuuuuck!

He remembered everything. They had somehow tried to take his memories.

Apparently whatever they had tried to do had not worked.

Eren had been upset before.

Now he was livid.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

Eren screamed, hands fisted so hard that his fingernails cut into his palms.

Little did he know, but upstairs the Dursleys were cowering in their bedrooms. The Freak had never made sounds like that before, but they were nonetheless sounds that reverberated in a way that could be only described as primal. Vernon and Petunia clutched each other tightly, as their son tried to crawl under his bed, whilst the whole house shook from a force that they didn't understand.

Suddenly, the cupboard door splintered. Eren didn't question his good luck, and grabbed the bag that he had packed for his unofficial plan, and without further ado, left through the front door and started racing down the street. In the opposite direction to Mrs Figg's house, of course. Despite the "deathwish" that he had carried through the military training, Eren was no fool.

Five blocks later, and Eren slowed his pace to a walk, panting slightly from the exertion. It didn't occur to him that even with his ridiculous training regime he should really be more tired after that. He was more concerned with what he was going to do now.

His plan that went outside of official channels was simple. He was going to travel as far as he could, and then let himself get picked up by the authorities. Then he was simply going to refuse to tell them where he had come from. Originally the unofficial plan had been for in case no one believed him about the abuse. But now...

He didn't know who the man in black had been, or how Mrs Figg was connected to him, but what he did know was that he didn't want to _ever_ be put in that position again.

How _dare_ they attempt to take his memories.

If Eren had not had his old memories to fall back on, he felt sure he would have been left with nothing but procedural memories. He would have had no idea who these people were and why they were tormenting him, and hell, he might have started to believe their bullshit.

He might have felt convinced that there was no escape.

But no. There was always escape.

Eren was not going to be humiliated like this again.

He was going to find a new place to start out, and then he was going to start investigating about people who used stick-like weapons to attack.

He would figure out who these people were, and then, as soon as his body was old enough to strike out on his own...

He would teach them the error that they had made in trying to cage Eren Jaeger.


	4. Chapter 4: Between Heaven and Hell

Chapter 4: Between Heaven and Hell

A few hours after he had left the Dursleys' domicile, and Eren's anger was no longer keeping him warm.

In fact, since it was late-November and late at night, Eren was starting to feel distinctly frozen. It occurred to him that whilst he had done well in filling his back-pack with food, he could perhaps have spared a little more room for things such as a warmer coat, or at the very least his moth-eaten blanket.

Falling back on the survival skills that he had picked up in his military training, Eren knew that he had to get out of the wind, and somewhere warm as quickly as possible, lest he wish to suffer from exposure.

Eren gritted his teeth. He had not gone nearly far enough to be content with the distance away from his erstwhile foster-family. He blamed it on this weak body. If only he were stronger and faster, as he remembered himself being, then he would be able to get to his objective.

A sensible person at this point would no doubt have questioned Eren as to what specifically his objective was. The only coherent answer Eren would have been able to manage was "Away". Eren was a person who went by his gut instincts, and did not question them. When every fibre of his being told him that staying with his foster-family meant being caged, Eren listened to his instincts that told him that this time, flight was the best form of fighting that he could manage.

If Armin and Mikasa had been there, this would have been about the point that Armin would have suggested a better-formed strategy with actual achievable survival-oriented goals, and that Mikasa would have applied whatever force necessary to drive Eren in that general direction. The two of them had always done their best to protect Eren from himself, and Eren in turn did his best to listen to them, though he occasionally chafed under Mikasa's tight rein.

Unfortunately for Eren, neither Armin nor Mikasa were with him at this moment. So neither of them were there to tell him that travelling alongside a main road as a small child was a stupidly dangerous risk.

Fortunately for Eren, the first being to spot him was not someone who meant him specific harm, but rather someone who was intrigued by the fact that a small boy could carry so much _anger_ in his soul.

A classic 1926 black Bentley pulled up next to Eren, and began keeping pace with him.

Eren paused, suddenly wary, and began to back away from the roadside.

The passenger-side window rolled down, and Eren heard strains of music coming from the internal radio. If Eren had been better informed about the music of this world, he would have been able to say that it sounded like something by Queen.

"Need a lift?" came a somewhat sibilant voice from inside the car.

Eren paused.

He considered his options. On the one hand, there was possibly freezing to death. On the other hand, having to deal with a person who was an unknown quantity, who could be anything from what Aunt Petunia might call a Good Samaritan to what Uncle Vernon would call a Bloody Pervert.

A rephrase. On the one hand, almost certain death. On the other hand, only potential death or injury.

Eren decided to take his chances.

"Yes," was all he said, as he stepped closer to the car.

He was too short to see in through the window, so he did not see how the driver managed to open the car door.

Eren peered in, and saw that the driver was a man of indeterminate age, wearing a black suit, red tie, and dark sunglasses. Eren thought this last part to be rather suspicions, considering that the dashboard clock showed that it was 00:13 on a moonless night.

"How can you see with those glasses on?" Eren demanded.

"Quite well," said the driver. "Are you coming in, or should I leave you here by the side of the road?" The driver sounded as though he hardly cared one way or the other. Eren was oddly reassured by this.

He climbed onto the leather seat and clicked his seatbelt into place.

He reached for the door, but it shut on its own. The driver then pulled out abruptly, leaving a minor accident in his wake.

Eren's feeling of reassurance started to diminish.

"So. Where you headed?" the driver asked after a few minutes of silence.

Eren shrugged. "Away from where I was."

Eren saw the driver's brow raise.

"Indeed?"

Eren nodded, not planning on saying anything further, but suddenly found himself blurting out the entire story.

"Yes. My foster-family wasn't feeding me enough, and were generally neglecting me. Then one day 'Uncle Vernon' decided to hit me. So I decided to get the fuck out of there. So I go through the official channels, you know, report to the school counsellor, she calls the police, I talk to them, they're talking about moving me... then the crazy cat lady from down the street and some tall man in a black robe with some kind of stick thing turn up, and the next thing I know is, I'm sitting back in my cupboard- oh yeah, the Dursleys made me sleep in the cupboard under the stairs and gave their spoilt son a second bedroom- and I can't remember anything that's not specifically to do with how to do things and general knowledge, and why the _hell_ am I telling you this!?" Eren demanded.

"Exactly."

"What?" Eren glared at the driver, who simply smirked.

"Call me Crowley," the driver said, instead of giving him an answer.

Eren just glared at him. "Why did you pick me up?"

"Well, you see, I wanted to know what in the name of hell a small very angry child with an unusually mature-looking aura was doing out by the road this time of night. Call it... professional curiosity."

Now Eren was confused. "What?"

"Would you believe me if I told you that I was a demon from Hell stationed here on Earth to keep an eye on things?"

Eren silently stared.

"So, moving right along," said Crowley in conversational tones. "You going to explain to me why you have two and a bit souls in that body?"

"...What?!"

Crowley frowned. "You seriously didn't know?"

He turned when Eren didn't answer him, and to his amusement, saw that the body of the small boy with the rather more mature soul in charge was gaping.

"How could I have- oh," Eren cut himself off, having a sudden thought.

"'Oh' what?" Crowley asked. "What unholy forces have you been playing with, kid?"

"Hey!" Eren protested. "It wasn't _my_ fault I woke up in this body."

"Oh?" Crowley snorted. "Then whose was it?"

Eren flopped back against the backrest.

"No idea. One minute I was dying in the belly of a Titan, and the next, I was in the body of an 18-month-old baby whose parents had just been killed."

The driver hissed in sympathy. "Tough break."

Eren sighed running a hand through his hair. "You're telling me."

"Oh fuck me, you're Harry Potter!" Crowley suddenly exclaimed.

"What?" said Eren. "I mean, that's what everyone calls this body, but how would you know?"

Crowley snorted. "Because I try to keep an eye on the magic-users to check what they're getting up to every once in a while, and that scar you have on your forehead is probably the most famous curse-scar in at least four centuries... wait a second, so you're not actually him? Who the fuck are you then?"

Eren shrugged. "I'm Eren Jaeger. At least, I was before I got eaten by a Titan and woke up in this body. I thought it was a prank at first."

Crowley's eyebrows were hovering around his hairline.

"A _Titan_?" Crowley whistled lowly. "I wouldn't discount the prank theory just yet, kid. Though if it's any consolation, I think the prank is supposed to be more on the Wizarding World than on you."

Eren frowned. "That's the second time you've mentioned magic-users. Magic is real?"

Crowley shrugged. "'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio/ than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'" At Eren's blank look, Crowley rolled his eyes. "Shakespeare, kid. Chances are you're going to be stuck in this world for a while yet, so you might as well try out the good stuff. But yeah. Magic is real. That body you're piggy-backing in should be able to do it, though if you care at all about the state of Harry's soul, you should probably refrain from dark magic- it'll stain the both of you."

Eren paled. "You mean that the kid whose body I'm in is trapped somewhere in here with me?"

Crowley waved a hand vaguely. "Don't sweat it, kid, Harry looks like he's just fine. If he really objected to your presence then he would have kicked you out by now. Though you might try talking to him every so often- poor kid is a bit lonely, though he thinks that you're amazing."

Eren was now thoroughly disturbed. "You mean to say that there's a five year old sharing my headspace that I've been entirely unaware of up to now?"

Crowley burst out laughing, swerving slightly on the road as he slapped his knee. "Of course not. I can't believe you just bought that load of horse-shit. Nah. Harry's soul is in there with you, but it never really got a proper shot of developing a separate consciousness before you started piggy-backing. Harry's developing mind got swamped under the weight of yours. In between getting brushed by the death spell and the psychic shock of you being shoved in there, young Harry is pretty much a vegetable. That other fragment on the other hand..."

"You mean he's dead?" Eren was starting to feel distinctly guilty.

Crowley shrugged. "Nah, just comatose. Don't worry about it kid, he probably never felt a thing. And if he did, it was the doing of that Voldemort character who killed his parents, and whatever being thought it was a good idea to shove you in there. He's basically going to be in stasis until that body dies, then he'll move on like any other person who died before their time. Better luck next time and all that jazz."

Eren scowled at that. Then he had a thought. "Wait a second. You said 'two and a bit souls' were in this body."

Crowley grinned a little too widely. "Well, I was going to tell you about that, but you so rudely interrupted me..."

Eren waited patiently in silence, not rising to the bait.

Crowley sighed. "You're no fun, you know that, kid? Well suffice to say that the one that killed little Harry's parents and tried to kill little Harry left something behind."

Eren gaped. "You mean there's a bit of Whatsisname in here with me too!"

Crowley burst out into guffaws.

"What?" Eren demanded, annoyed and confused. "What's so funny?"

Crowley just shook his head, as he thumped the steering wheel gasping for air.

Eren glared.

Crowley tried and failed to not find that _adorable_.

"Don't worry about it kid," he finally gasped out. "You'll get the joke eventually."

Eren's glare intensified.

Crowley resisted the urge to ruffle his hair, and said, "actually come to think of it, it's probably not that funny anyway. Ah well. This is your stop," he said suddenly, pulling the car into the shoulder.

Eren's glare morphed into a perturbed stare.

"What do you mean this is my stop?" he demanded.

Crowley flicked his glasses to the top of his head, revealing yellow eyes with slitted pupils. Eren blanched.

"I mean kid..." Crowley drawled, "this is where you get out. Don't worry, it's a nice enough spot, so I hear. You should be able to find a better situation than the one that you came from, provided you make the right friends."

Eren considered his options. He had never been all that good at making friends. Still, he supposed that he had got a lot further than he might have had Crowley not stopped to pick him up. And whatever Crowley was, Eren was getting the distinct impression that outstaying his welcome wasn't going to be good for his health. He unclicked the seatbelt and jumped out the door, running out into the night.

"Why did you help him?" Aziraphale asked from the backseat.

Crowley _didn't_ jump. The angel only rarely popped into the Bentley without a specific invitation, but he had the oddest instinct for knowing when Crowley was... creatively interpreting orders, and tended to turn up for the... intel. Crowley had three-quarters been expecting the angel to show up as soon as he had picked up the wildcard.

"Help is such a strong word..." he smirked.

Aziraphale snorted. "Oh please, remember for just a moment how long I've known you for. I haven't seen you this smug since you had a hand in inventing Big Brother." He sipped delicately at the cup of steaming Earl Grey in his hands as he waited for his oldest frenemy to elaborate.

Crowley shrugged. He would have bragged about it eventually anyway. "If God's ineffable Plan is robust enough to withstand someone throwing a wildcard into the mix, then I think it's robust enough to withstand the wildcard knowing what he is." Crowley grinned. "What, are you complaining? I thought you would appreciate a sense of fair play."

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. "You are of course using fair play as a cover for causing trouble."

Crowley's grin widened. "Of course. But you have to admit that the chaos is going to be entertaining to watch..."

Aziraphale sniffed, and took a sip of his tea. "I have to admit nothing, demon." But Crowley could see the smile that Aziraphale was trying and failing to hide behind his teacup. Aziraphale's brow creased. "One moment. Is this where I think it is?"

Crowley's smirk grew.

"If you think this is Lower Tadfield, then yes indeed, my fine feathery friend."

"Crowley," Aziraphale said thoughtfully.

"What?" said Crowley.

"Has it occurred to you that mixing the Not-Anti-Christ and the wildcard might be something that the powers-that-be will look a little dimly upon?"

Crowley shrugged. "Oh probably. But my end are still trying to organise themselves after that Apocalypse Later incident. How about yours?"

Aziraphale nodded. "The same." He waved his hand faux-vaguely.

Crowley cocked his head to one side.

"Alright. What the fuck did you just do?"

Aziraphale preened. "I made sure that the wildcards would not fall into despair. A most noble and _heavenly_ cause, don't you think?" he smiled.

Crowley's brow rose.

"You mean...?" Crowley started laughing.

"Indeed." Aziraphale took a sip of his tea. "Would you believe that the other wildcard has been here since before the aborted apocalypse as the younger sister of one of the Not-Anti-Christ's friends?"

"Indeed?" Crowley's laughter trailed off. "Wait a minute. You don't think..."

This time Aziraphale shrugged. "Oh, I doubt it. I think whoever threw in these wildcards either have been playing the long game, or didn't realise that the apocalypse was scheduled for a couple of months ago." He paused thoughtfully. "Though I must say, it is _most convenient_ for whoever they are that it didn't happen."

The angel and the demon considered this, and each other for a few moments in silence.

"Soooo," Crowley drawled. "Want to get a pint?"

Aziraphale sniffed. "Are you actually going to pay for the drinks this time?" he asked scathingly.

The two divine beings drove off, bickering.

Meanwhile, Eren was getting cold again, but he could see some lights glowing from a house nearby. He approached it, hoping that the people inside would be nice enough to let him in.

He knocked on the back door, and a child about his size opened it.

Eren blinked in the sudden light from the hallway.

"Who are you?" the child- a girl, Eren realised, he could see now that she was wearing a pink dress- demanded.

"I'm Eren Jaeger," Eren said.

The girl gasped, and sat down suddenly.

"Shimatta!" Eren swore and moved too late to catch her. Now that his eyes had adjusted, he could see that the girl had a nimbus of blonde hair about her head.

"...Eren-kun? Honto ni namae wa Eren to imasuka?" The girl asked if his name was truly Eren. The part that startled him more however, was that she was speaking in the language of _his_ world.

"Hai, boku wa Eren desu. Anata wa?" Eren confirmed her query and then in turn, demanded who she was.

"Eren," the little girl had tears on her face, but she was smiling. "It's me. Mikasa."

Eren's jaw dropped.

"Mikasa!?"

...

_E-cookies to anyone who can figure out who Mikasa replaced (I haven't exactly made this hard if you're familiar with Good Omens.) No, I didn't invent her family or her character's existence, that's all Pratchett/Gaiman. :P_


End file.
